The maid
(uncredited)
24 hours in the life of a humble general practitioner. A very busy life to say the least... Like every other day, Dr. Forget works from morning till dusk (and even later). He sees patients in his consulting room or visits them either on house calls or at the hospital. But is today just another day? Not quite since on this very day, Junior, Dr. Forget's son, will know if he has passed or not his exam at the faculty of medicine.
La concierge (uncredited)
Robert Langlois is now married to Catherine, the former housemaid. And they would live happily ever after if the housing crisis did not force them to live together with Gabrielle and Fernand, Robert's parents. For, despite the good will on either side, tension soon arises. What else to expect when there is too little space in their Montmartre apartment for four people (then for six then eight, the couple having... two pairs of twins!) ; the continued presence there of Fernand (who loves peace and quiet) after he is driven to retirement ; the difficult beginnings of Robert as a lawyer in a room of the apartment, etc... Other troubles follow and the harried family is on the verge of implosion...
(uncredited)
A Parisian reporter tries to exonerate a fugitive neighbor of charges he murdered his wife.
Une bonne
Adèle
Hortense, the maid
Martial, Colette 's husband, is madly jealous. One day, he catches his wife writing a letter and he does want to know what this message contains, to no avail.
Zoé, la bonne (uncredited)
A husband who had divorced twice because he had been betrayed by his former wives, takes his precautions to prevent the deed from happening a third time. And yet it does.
La bonne du curé
Modest fifty-something, Mr. Perle, is a baker in a small provincial town. He lives there with an authoritarian woman and her cousin, a parasite who poisons his existence. A Parisian notary writes to the hero to ask him to come and take possession of an inheritance. In Paris, Perle meets a pretty adventuress.
La bonne de l'asile
Is it because his father was a groom that Adhémar Pomme has a long horse head and a horse- toothed smile? Maybe but the fact is that his head has invariably caused laughter whatever the circumstances, which is the tragedy of his life. After having worked as an undertaker, a theater prompter, a casino bouncer, and so on, and failing at each job, he applies out of desperation to an institution where those rejected for physical reasons can hide and live together. But Adhémar immediately starts... laughing at them and gets kicked out as a result! In the end though, he finds his way as a circus artist.
Une élève
"Olivia" captures the awakening passions of an English adolescent sent away for a year to a small finishing school outside Paris. The innocent but watchful Olivia develops an infatuation for her headmistress, Mlle. Julie, and through this screen of love observes the tense romance between Mlle. Julie and the other head of the school, Mlle. Cara, in its final months.
Célestine
A wealthy baron, without offspring, who knows death is approaching, wants to adopt a man who kept him alive a bit longer, when he was almost run over by a horse drawn cart.
Claire, la gardeuse d'oies
While he was about to end his life, Baron de Cantenac wanted to return one last time to the land of his ancestors. He then discovers a treasure that he will strive to use to revive his village.
Dominique, a medical student, works in a cinema to help her friend Simone Lambert, a pharmacy student. Big scandal in his bourgeois-minded family when we learn and he works and he has a friend. His father chases him away brutally. Dominique is going to live with Simone, in her sixth grade. From that day on, she receives a visit from a mysterious character who calls himself a novelist and who helps her to meet the needs of her household. Dominique discovers that this character is none other than his father: he no longer understands.
(uncredited)
The film is a 125-minute, black-and-white biography of French priest and diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754–1838), who served for 50 years under five different French regimes: the Absolute Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Constitutional Monarchy. Its title comes from one of the main historical nicknames for Talleyrand, that he shares with demon king Asmodeus and English poet Lord Byron.